


Man Delights Not Me

by masonverger_rising



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Asexual, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Case Fic, M/M, ace/ aro will, demi/ pan-rom hannibal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3529589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masonverger_rising/pseuds/masonverger_rising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins quietly. They hadn’t really discussed it but Will Graham shows up more and more often on Hannibal Lecter’s doorstop in the small hours of the morning. Sometimes he leaves, confused and not a little embarrassed. He is always invited in.<br/>**<br/>Asexual relationship fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Companionship

It begins quietly. They hadn’t really discussed it but Will Graham shows up more and more often on Hannibal Lecter’s doorstop in the small hours of the morning. Sometimes he leaves, confused and not a little embarrassed. He is always  _invited_  in.

Doctor Lecter will offer him coffee or whiskey or chamomile tea and they’ll talk or they’ll sit in quiet, or Doctor Lecter will listen as Will Graham paces and talks and talks, trying to empty his head, trying to find quiet.

When it happens they’re in the library, their whiskey glasses are empty and Will has talked and paced himself to exhaustion. They sit side-by-side on the settee and Hannibal watches the fire, his eyes shining in the semi-dark. Will’s eyes are closed, his breathing slow and slowing.

His weight shifts and Hannibal welcomes it, cradles his friend against his side and slopes his shoulder so that it will be a comfortable pillow. Will mumbles an apology and is gently shushed.

It is peaceful.

Will is sleeping soundly, his eyes darting behind closed lids and Hannibal hums to himself. He feels warm though the fire is dying, there is an unfamiliar prickle under his skin — not unpleasant, but …

If he were a man with less self-control he might have jerked in his seat, might have jumped up or shouted at the realisation — it’s been so many years he thought he might have only imagined it, but this is just the same, or very much the same feeling he’d had when he’d seen Lady Murasaki in her bath, her breasts like sweet pink blossoms in the water.

And he is hard now in his trousers, without any stimulation and it makes his belly turn over. He and Will haven’t discussed this, though, and he wants to stay, wants to nuzzle against him, breathe in the awful scent of his cheap aftershave overlaying the musky, bitter smell of Will himself, and just the thought of it makes his cock throb and leak.

But that would be so very  _rude_.

Hannibal extricates himself with the utmost care, rearranges Will’s sleeping form without jostling him, pauses when his eyelids flutter and props him up with cushions.

In the bathroom Hannibal slips his shoes off, walks across the cold tiles in stocking feet and relishes the shiver it sends through him. He stands in front of the mirror and watches himself, his eyes are bright, full of red sparks of light and he can’t keep the smile from his face, looks down at the shape of his erection standing against his clothing.

He fondles himself through his trousers, until the fabric is wet and he’s panting, leaning against the sink, his forehead pressed to the mirror glass fogged with his breath.

In the morning Will wakes cocooned in blankets and cushions and blinks at the cinders in the grate. As he stumbles into the kitchen on feet clumsy with pins and needles the first thing he utters is an apology.

“Not at all, Will,” Hannibal assures him — he’s still smiling and it’s infectious. Later they’ll talk about this, about the change that has come over him, perhaps. But for now there is coffee and breakfast. And easy companionship.


	2. Unease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will realises something is up. Will decides to avoid whatever it is at all costs.

Will tries to leave before breakfast.

There is a great deal of fumbling and a mumbled excuse that stutters into silence when Lecter gently steers him to the breakfast table and sets a cup of fresh, hot coffee in front of him. Will nods to himself and rubs his eyes. There’s no crick in his neck as he might have expected, he feels rested rather than ragged. He can feel Doctor Lecter watching him steadily. As unobtrusive as ever, but something’s changed.

The attention makes Will’s skin prickle, he can feel Lecter’s eyes on him, a hot point between his shoulder blades, trailing up his throat. Lingering on his hand as he grasps a napkin into a fist and then fretfully smooths it against the tabletop. He fishes his glasses out and sets them on his nose. Will chooses to focus on the orange juice that is set in front of him, watching the beads of condensation run down the curve of the glass.

A mind like his, Will has to pick his battles. Whatever it is that Lecter is thinking, he doesn’t want to think it. He doesn’t want to deal with anything more than he has in front of him, eggs and fruit and coffee. All done up with garnishes and spices whose names will ring in Will’s ears for hours, echoing around the boundaryless spaces in his mind, but, for all of the pageantry, all the verbiage, these are simple, familiar foods. Homely. He’s glad for that. Focusing on the familiar allows him the space to avoid whatever is brewing in Lecter’s head.

Will wonders if that is by design — the doctor knows him, knows his habits and his tics by now. Is he trying to hide something? Trying to ensure that Will won’t grow too curious? He shakes his head. More likely is that Lecter wants to psychoanalyse him in peace, and no doubt he would say that creating a safe space for Will is beneficial or therapeutic. Never mind that it also allows him to keep chipping away at whatever idea he’s working on.

Those sharp eyes, prickling over Will’s shoulders. He hunches in his seat and focuses on shovelling his food into his mouth. Lecter is up to something. Will doesn’t want to think about it. Lecter, obviously, doesn’t want him to deal with it either. Except that—

“This is good.” Will speaks with his mouth half-full and then keeps on mechanically scooping up bite after bite. His eyes are trained on a glistening cluster of grapes arranged artfully inside a carved honeydew melon, with slices of peach arranged in winglike fans on either side.

How long can he pointedly ignore the slight quirk at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, and the way he folds his hands when he isn’t lifting is coffee. At least until the end of breakfast. At least until he can stumble out of the house and into the relative peace of his car. Back to his little house and his dogs. At least until his next session.

“Will, I wonder—“

Will’s phone sounds like a klaxon, cutting through Hannibal’s words. He scrambles for it. Jack Crawford. There will be blood and death. There will be night sweats and headaches. Will keeps himself from sighing with relief as he answers the call.

_Four dead in a middle class family home in the suburbs. No known enemies. Ritualised disembowelment. Might as well bring Doctor Lecter along. It’s a messy one._

They take the Bentley, and Will pulls his collar up, ducks his head into silence for the duration.


	3. Investigation

The house is a good-sized place for a young family, two stories and large windows. As the Bentley rolls up at the police cordon, Hannibal looks the house over with the same cool detachment he uses when he prepares for his own kills. The yard is big, but there’s no dog barking. No pets? Easy, then, to slip around the back and peer into those windows from the shadows.

Will’s head jerks up and he squints through the windshield. He produces his glasses and pushes them onto his face. Very guarded. And, Hannibal supposes, that is understandable. A deep breath.

“Jack will be waiting for you, Will.”

“He can deal with it.”

Silence, then, for a good long while. Hannibal watches Will’s jaw working and breathes slow and deep to take in the scent of him, close and hot in the car. A flurry of movement over by the gate of the front yard, Jack barrelling through the gaggle of local police, lifting his phone — Will opens the door with a rush of cool air and is gone, hunching into himself, heading toward Jack Crawford. Hannibal catches the first few beeps of his ringtone before the sound is whisked away by the wind.

A moment passes, then two. Hannibal follows at a sedate pace. Will has been avoiding him this morning. He is not at all surprised. Will has time to page through a report and then discard it before Hannibal catches him up.

Hannibal is an odd figure among the uniformed police and the crime scene techs in their drab gear. He nods to Beverly Katz as he passes her, and follows Will up to the front door of the house, keeping a few paces behind. Hannibal keeps his hands curled in his coat pockets. He follows as Will peers in through the front door and then backtracks, picking his way around to the side of the house and around the back.

At a casual distance, Hannibal watches Will pace along the width of the yard. He moves like a caged animal. Along the back of the house once, twice, then to the fence, carefully hauling himself up to see if he could, and then to see what is there. The house on the other side is too close for the killer to have gained access that way. Then he opens the side gate and stills. It leads into a blind, a space between this and the neighbouring house where the trash cans are kept.

“He came in through here. He watches them, learns their habits.” Will is clinging to himself, refusing to succumb to the undertow of his mind.

Despite his suit and his striking figure, Hannibal blends into the background. He doesn’t want to distract Will, and he doesn’t want to draw his attention now, but to observe.  Now that things have changed, that something in him has awoken that he thought he might never feel again, Hannibal wants to ensure he doesn’t misstep.

Regret is not something that Hannibal often indulges in, but the way that he and Lady Murasaki parted is one of those rare few things that he relives sometimes in the small hours of the morning, the scene playing out in endless variation. Many of them, still, end in loss. Hannibal knows himself, and knows himself as he was well enough to acknowledge his faults.

“I cut the phone line.” Will Graham is standing stock-still, his arm stretched out toward the exposed wiring half hidden behind a flowering shrub. “I cut the phone line as the Davis family settle in to sleep.” He sways, and then strides toward the back door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess what it's a case fic


End file.
